


Her Better Half

by Marie_L



Category: Killjoys (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Aneela POV, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 10:36:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13075077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marie_L/pseuds/Marie_L
Summary: Long before Yala becomes Dutch, Aneela remembers. And finds her.





	Her Better Half

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Froggimus_Rex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Froggimus_Rex/gifts).



Twenty years of searching, and Aneela had finally found it. Her baby and mother reflected, her chiral twin, her abominous other half. The missing element from her likely non-existent soul.

Khlyen tried to hide the thing well, far away from the Quad on the ass-end of the J. A high-status _harem,_ gods be damned, as if the situation wasn’t pathetic enough. Khlyen probably thought he was being clever, recreating their mother’s fall from grace in the outback. But the little mutant had been kicking up quite a storm, enabling Aneela to hone in on it. Aneela might have been proud, if her intention wasn’t to absorb back what that rug-rat inadvertently stole.

She swooped down to the planet and then the compound, another of hundreds of swank, soft, overly coiffed affairs, where wealth gave the locals pretensions of grandeur. Her Hullen bloodlust longed to separate their heads from their pretty bodies, just to show who was superior. Strategically, though, it made more sense to barge in rather than to massacre the place, for a less messy retreat.

And there, in a plant-filled pavilion that served as a prison, Aneela found her tech-conceived daughter. Who had now grown old enough to look _exactly_ like her, of her at the precise moment Aneela’s cells were green goo preserved in their optimal youthful state. Aneela felt — her first emotions in decades, aside from the occasional bouts of rage — a surge of irrational jealousy. That this _thing_ had taken away her affection, her compassion, her joyful remembrance of the the people she had once loved. Aneela could hardly remember these benighted feelings, and yet at the same time she missed them, and fiercely resented the creature who condensed and isolated that stolen heritage.

The young woman turned as she walked in, its face a mask of Aneela’s own. It was wearing a long dress that suited its body perfectly and yet still had the air of a costume, and was holding a lyre like it was on fire. The eyes cocked as they saw Aneela, more intrigued than shocked.

“Who the hells are you?” it demanded, and Aneela had to appreciate that it wasn’t all moondrops and sweet playtime. “Long lost cousin or something?”

“Something. Yes,” Aneela replied. “You’re mine, little girl. I released you into this beautiful atrocity of a universe, and I’m taking you back.”

“Huh,” said the Yalena-thing. Aneela had noted before her arrival that Khlyen hadn’t even bothered to change the name. Sentimental old fool. _He_ hadn’t had his soul lobotomized. She should have guessed years ago.

The girl tightened its grip on the lyre, and at the same time loosened its wires with a few spare fingers. Weaponising the instrument — she had been trained. Maybe Khlyen wasn’t so sentimental after all.

“You planning on doing something with that?” Aneela asked. “Tell me, did dear old Khlyen demand that you do use that? Some ruthless act that horrified you, even though he’s been teaching you to kill all along?”

Now the Yalena-thing finally did look frightened, albeit still with sassy defiance. Aneela doubted she herself had ever looked so stupid, before. Proof that feelings enfeebled the mind.

“What, you thought you were the only one to get special treatment?” Aneela pressed. “Of course, you’re just a remnant of me. A nice shard, shiny and gleaning and dull as a butter knife. _”_

“You know, you’re coming off pretty fucking unhinged,” it said, and without warning, it flung the instrument straight at Aneela’s face. Aneela ducked, but not fast enough to prevent getting nicked by a flailing string. Blood dribbled down, and a poison seeped in, and the green did its job and repelled and repaired the wound. As usual, there was no pain.

“Oh, it’s going to take more than that little nastiness to do me in,” Aneela said. She knew the wound had sealed over already, and the Yalena-thing’s face scrunched as it watched the healing’s unnatural speed.

“Who are you?” the replicant demanded. Its voice slurred abnormally low to Aneela’s ears, grating to agitation. “Why do you have my face? My mother’s dead.”

“Yes and no,” Aneela said. “What’s a mother, dearie?” She smiled, showing her teeth.

It moved towards her, despite the hindering outfit, and for an instant Aneela considered fighting just for sheer pleasure of it. Just to see what how well Khlyen had done in teaching Not-Her not be Not-Hullen, given the girl’s emotional handicaps. In some sense Khlyen had a second chance with the Yalena-thing to relieve Aneela’s own childhood, but he chose to spend the time teaching it to be an imitation of a soldier. It lacked the power of the plasma, which not only strengthened the body to unimaginable levels, but also linked Aneela and her other Hullen kin to entire generations, entire planets of knowledge, that had come before.

The Yalena-thing gracefully pivoted to strike first. Aneela pulled out her stunner and tazed the girl to the ground.

“No fun today, little one,” she murmured, and picked up the doppelganger like a sack of weapons and dragged it back to the ship.

* * * * *

On board she had the clone stripped of its ridiculous outfit, and placed face up in a warm rejuvenation tank, its arms and legs restrained under the water and head propped up just above the water’s surface. Not that the circumstances of the absorption really mattered, but it seemed apropos. From the womb, back into a sort of womb. Confined.

She sat by the thing’s bath, waiting for it to wake up without being artificially stimulated. Now that she finally had the wayward creature, it was crunch time to decide what to do with her. All along Aneela had been planning on absorbing it back into herself, and letting the plasma eradicate the emotional hole left by the Yalena’s separation. She wanted to feel again, however briefly, and then expected it to be erased into the superior character of the Hullen essence.

But now another thought occurred to her — what would happen if she tried to inoculate the girl directly? Would there end up being two of them, two emotionless super-soldiers identical in their perfection? The Lady would be displeased, for reasons unknown. The idea appealed to Aneela, though. As if she could do what Khlyen failed to do, and make the Yalena truly her daughter. Worthy, instead of a receptacle for all the weakness she had left behind.

She ran her fingertips over the soft skin of the Yalena’s forehead. It was still baby-soft, and Aneela had not force the unwanted image of the actual child from her mind. Next to her, the girl opened its eyes.

“You think you are my mother,” it muttered. “Look, psycho, just because I look like you, doesn’t mean…”

“You are,” Aneela said, cutting her off. “Your memories are not your own. A remnant, a shadow, like I said. That picture in your head of the first Yalena was _my_ mother. You, little abomination, came from me. Shall we see what happens when you are infected back with me?”

She plucked a knife off the belt around her waist, and slit a small cut in her forearm. The green liquid that replaced blood oozed out. She poked the Yalena’s pretty neck too, just the tiniest nick off the main artery, and pressed her hand to the wound.

 _Let the green decide,_ she thought.

The girl shuddered as the plasma spread, infecting her. She began to seize, a not abnormal response. Aneela closed her eyes and concentrated, seeing if she could detect the girl’s absorption or death. Would she change? Would the Hullen change? Maybe it was all for nothing, and the weak thing would perish like so many other inadequate beings. Maybe there was only room for one of them with any strength, one with the green’s _approval._ Maybe she was the anointed one all along, and this was a frivolous exercise of vanity.

Yalena’s motions became so violent that she ripped through the restraints. Aneela sat with wide joyous eyes, unperturbed. It was almost done with its work. And then the unexpected happened — Yalena’s eyelids popped open, and she sat up and vomited out all the plasma. Rejecting it, violently. As if the doppelganger herself had the power to choose, instead of the green.

Aneela gripped the knife.

Yalena panted and blinked for a couple of seconds, obviously trying to get her bearings. “Guess it doesn't like me,” she muttered. “We going to do this, sister, or can you let me go? I don’t want to kill you.”

“You, kill me?” Aneela laughed. “First of all, pretty sure that when I die you will too, little ghost. Second, you don’t have it in you. You’re weak.”

But in the back of her head, now there was doubt. The girl had defeated the green! No one did that, not Khlyen, not the Lady, not young Aneela herself. A fool’s errand.

Yalena jumped to her feet and kicked Aneela in the head. She gasped, momentarily stunned at the Hullen-level force behind it. Then she tasted blood, iron red blood, as Yalena smeared a ribbon down her face. It spread inside her, a better poison than anything Khlyen could provide. Aneela choked as the stuff congealed within her, fighting the green for every last cell.

“Naw. Done with this. But thanks for the power boost, mum. You’ve got a nice ship here, I’ll give you that. Been meaning to blow that rock for awhile.”

She leapt out of the tank and padded down over to the door, naked as the day she was born. Her opposite, Aneela realized. And yet the same. Neither one of them could destroy the other with destroying themselves. Once a thing is birthed, it can never crawl back into the womb.

Arkyn’s plasma repaired her, eventually. She rejected the red just as efficiently as her twin-clone had rejected the green. And like the poles of a magnet repelling each other, she let the young woman possessing her face go. Released the hole carved in her soul, in the form of her better half.

 


End file.
